


Breakfast Dreams

by zarabithia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5590138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being awake isn't always the hardest part of being in the 21st century.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breakfast Dreams

When Steve first woke up and found himself in the 21st century, it wasn’t only the going to bed that was a chore. Certainly, his marshmallow mattress wasn’t helping him get a good night’s sleep, that much Steve would readily admit. 

To one of the few people who actually cared, and who understood exactly where those issues came from, thanks to shared live experiences that didn’t give a damn about the fact that Sam Wilson was young enough to be Steve’s grandson.

But it wasn’t the getting to sleep that made Steve so reluctant to crawl underneath the covers. Lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling and trying to will sleep to come was not the thing that kept Steve in the gym for hours longer than he should have been, and it wasn’t the thing that had him hanging onto the shower wall, shaking with the kind of sobs that were mostly drowned out by the pound of the water against the tile. 

No, only the waking up had that effect. 

Because the truth about freezing “to death” was that it hadn’t been a fast process. 

(Or a complete one, but Steve supposes that line of thought is unhealthy at best.) 

It had been a prolonged, steady decrease of consciousness in which Steve’s sense of reality faded in and out. Eventually, by the time that the frigid roar of the cold had turned to a bitter sting, the hopes of what might have been and what used to be mingled with the present in the way that felt very much like a dream that Steve couldn’t wake up from. 

The 21st century didn’t have Steve having to deal with freezing to death, but it did have dreams. And sometimes, in the space between sleep and waking up, when the mornings were still hazy and the time that had passed still unremembered, Steve’s dreams were as confused with reality as they had been in 1945.

Sometimes, like this morning, for instance.

Steve’s eyes are closed as he stretches too long limbs in the small hotel bed that was never designed to accommodate a super soldier-enhanced body. He is on the search for Bucky, but his mind has not caught up with that task.

It will, eventually, but for now it is immediately distracted by the faint whiff of hashbrowns from across the street. 

In that moment ,those overly well-down hashbrowns are not being made by a frustrated cook with a student loan debt and a personal vendetta against the waiter. In that moment, Steve turns over in bed and - 

And he’s in a small apartment in Brooklyn, blue and green splashed across the walls and bright red pots and pans on every single burner of their stove.

Their stove, yes, because Peggy and Sam and Natasha are there, and the conversation meanders and is vague, as dream talks usually are. But they are smiling and full of life and memory and happiness. 

Natasha leans her chin on Peggy’s shoulder and Sam is drinking orange juice out of the container. 

“You’re going to burn the toast, Dad,” someone says, and Steve turns to inspect the toast, certain that it’s fine and the kid is just exaggerating they always do.

And in that moment, Steve stretches just the wrong way. The bump to the toe is enough to shake reality free from what might have been, in another life, and what Steve wishes could be, in this life. 

He gets up, and his breathing is steady until the bathroom door is shut behind him. 

He doesn’t want to disturb Sam, after all.


End file.
